Instagram Is Going To Sell All Your Photos

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All good things come to an end, and we’re not happy about Instagram’s new “Privacy Policy & Terms of Service.” For those of us that love to share photos fromthe many Los Angeles concerts we attend and cover, now Instagram claims the right to sell users’ photos without payment or notification. Oh, and there’s no way to opt out, according to CNET.

The new intellectual property policy, which takes effect on January 16, 2013, comes three months after Facebook completed its acquisition of the popular photo-sharing site. Unless Instagram users delete their accounts before the January deadline, they cannot opt out.

Under the new policy, Facebook claims the perpetual right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, which would effectively transform the Website into the world’s largest stock photo agency. One irked Twitter user quipped that “Instagram is now the new iStockPhoto, except they won’t have to pay you anything to use your images.”

Say for example, a big corpo entity such a News Corp (FOX) wants to launch a music service targeted towards the underground and indie music scene, they can write a fat check to Instagram/Facebook and use all of our concert photography. Without compensating the owners of these Instagram photos, our example company (News Corp) would be able to use all of your photos for any type of print or online marketing and you won’t receive a dime, but Facebook will.

How do you feel about all that? For more information about Instagram selling your photos, click here. For an alternate look at Instagram’s new privacy rules, click here (it’s a bit less intrusive and they’re not stealing as hard).

UPDATE 2:09PM: Instagram just posted a blog to clarify their messy legal lingo:

“Advertising is one of many ways that Instagram can become a self-sustaining business, but not the only one. Our intention in updating the terms was to communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram. Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear …. Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos … The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question.”